Cabaye the ‘perfect’ midfielder; it was a masterclass – Pardew

Cabaye scored the game’s only goal towards the end of the first half and was unfortunate not to secure a second as he inspired his team to victory and created further goalscoring chances.

The three points strengthened sixth-placed Palace’s pursuit of the top six and European football in addition to hampering the ambitions of a potential rival.

Pardew was instrumental in luring Cabaye, Palace’s club-record £10million signing, from Paris St Germain in the summer, and after another fine performance the manager said: “It was a Frenchman who was the difference between the two sides, it was a masterclass from Yohan Cabaye.

“If you want to come and see how a midfielder plays in the Premier League – tackling, heading, passing, being calm on the ball, being frantic when you need to be – he did everything.

“I wouldn’t say we dominated it for the whole period. The last 10 minutes got a bit frantic but overall I thought we deserved to win, I thought we did enough, although both goalkeepers have had to pull off some really good saves to keep the scoreline at 1-0.

“I kept saying our home form’s been good, but obviously results didn’t back that up. We got an important win, we were so determined, we’ve got to take that into every game now and try and stay sixth for this Christmas period.”